


Our doubts are traitors

by kisahawklin



Series: The Three Body Problem [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel-centric, Missing Scene, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Coragyps, who wanted Cas' thoughts when he realizes Dean and Sam might leave him behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our doubts are traitors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Coragyps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coragyps/gifts).



Castiel holds his breath. He had hoped for this, the brothers coming into their sexual relationship on their own, but it makes his own footing less steady. He proceeds to plan; no need to think about things falling apart until they actually fall apart.

When Dean requests his help in showing Sam how much he is loved, Castiel agrees immediately. Sam is the most worthy man he knows and to see him doubt himself breaks Castiel's heart. 

He can be this, even if it is all he is to them. A conduit. A teacher. That is enough for him. As long as he is within their orbit, that is more than he thought he might have gotten.

Seeing the brothers afterward, tangled together, Dean's limp form half-covering his brother, it is an exercise in self-restraint. He wants to tuck himself under Sam's free arm, rest his head on Sam's chest and run his fingers over the smooth skin of Dean's back. He puts his own desires away for the moment and attends to them instead, getting a warm washcloth to wipe them clean and a light blanket to throw over the pair of them so they don't get cold. 

He watches them for a while after they both fall asleep, Dean rolling away from his brother and yet still in contact, their legs entwined inextricably. There is a heaviness in Castiel's chest he doesn't understand, his breathing belabored in a way that he has never experienced before. 

As he does whenever his own emotions confuse him, he starts moving. The bunker is not big enough, so he dresses quickly and takes his car out for a drive. He takes the country roads around for a while, but ends up in town out of habit, driving by the familiar houses and storefronts. 

He wonders, briefly, what the Winchesters would say if he told them how he felt. He can imagine Sam's sympathetic face and Dean's annoyed one, and decides Dean would probably say something about pie. 

He pulls into the diner's parking lot on impulse, and when Mrs. Boettcher asks him what's wrong, he tells her.

~~~

Sam comes in just as they put the pie crust in the oven and start to discuss fillings. 

"Sam," Castiel says, smiling, because he is always happy to see Sam, even if it he is unsure of his place with the Winchesters at the moment. "We are making pie."

"Yes," Mrs. Boettcher says, smiling at Sam. " _Cherry_ pie."

Sam's eyes go huge and round and his eyes shift back and forth between Castiel and Mrs. Boettcher a few times before settling on Castiel. "Really?" he asks, his voice strangled and strange.

"Mrs. Boettcher thinks it would be appropriate," Castiel says, slapping Sam on the back when he chokes unceremoniously. 

"Right," Sam says, pinkness coming up around his face as he flushes. "Of course." 

Sam hangs around while Castiel helps Mrs. Boettcher with the pie, committing everything to memory so he can try it at home. Dean likes to cook but has never ventured to try pie, despite how much he insists it is the pinnacle of all foodstuffs.

As soon as the pie is finished, Sam makes their apologies and hauls Castiel out of the diner, steaming pie in hand – along with a pair of oven mitts he will have to return to Mrs. Boettcher later because the dish is too warm to carry bare-handed.

"You seem upset," Castiel says once they have settled in the car, Sam behind the wheel and Castiel with the pie in his lap. "Is everything all right?"

Sam turns to look at him, a brief emotion that Castiel can't quite read flickering across his face, and then puts his eyes back to the road. "I'm fine," he says quietly. 

They don't speak for the rest of the trip back to the bunker.

~~~

Dean is pleased with the pie, serving it up and settling in at the table in the kitchen. He too can tell something is wrong with Sam; Castiel can tell from the way his face is set even as he closes his eyes in bliss at the first taste of the cherry pie.

It turns out that Sam believes Castiel only wants Dean. Castiel can't even comprehend how Sam could think such a thing, but then Dean admits to agreeing to the first date because he thought Sam wanted Castiel. 

His whole plan is unraveling, right in front of his eyes, the Winchesters admitting things he never thought they would, things he thought would forever be lost once they had come to an understanding. And then, it is his turn to admit his shortcomings and his questions about his place, in their lives, in this bunker. 

Castiel doesn't even hesitate, doesn't let the Winchesters interrupt, though they both try. He saw them earlier today, he can see how their entire relationship has been rewritten, and that is his doing and he is proud. Selfishly, he wishes they had been more secretive, given him more time to insinuate himself into the spaces and cracks of their relationship, but as everything shifted, those tiny loopholes had closed up, swallowed in the new understanding they shared.

"I had considered that one possible outcome was that you would come to this place in your relationship," Castiel says, forcing the words out quickly because if he must withdraw, he doesn't want to linger, "and I might not –"

He forgets, sometimes, how well trained Sam and Dean are, how fast, how frighteningly physical. Sam has him out of his chair and yanked into a kiss before he can finish his sentence, and he is breathless with relief nearly as much as arousal. 

Dean crowds in behind him, and again, Castiel muses that he will happily take as much or as little as the Winchesters give him. He pulls Dean's hand forward to Sam's waist, and Sam's to Dean's shoulder, and within the triple points of contact, he thinks he can find a way to be invaluable to them, to be something that can bind them together even more closely.

It's Dean that turns the tables, though, his hands on Castiel alone, and then Sam's mouth as well.

As it turns out, they give him everything, and he greedily takes it all.


End file.
